Monorails on expressway?

Monorails on expressway?
The Times of India

Bangalore: Mysore in 45 minutes, and at a fraction of the cost travelling the same distance by your car. That’s a possibility if Nandi Infrastructure Corridor Enterprise’s (NICE) plans for a monorail along its Bangalore-Mysore expressway works out.

A NICE spokesperson said the company is in advanced stage of discussions with three potential monorail operators for implementing the project. The plan is to have monorails running on the expressway, as also on NICE’s outer peripheral road that connects Tumkur Road with Hosur Road via Mysore Road.

If the company is allowed to extend the Peripheral Road to do an entire circle of the city, the monorail could even connect the up-coming international airport in Devanahalli.

The company says the monorail could become a great alternative for the masses — those unable to pay the tolls on the road — and equally for those who do not want to use their personal vehicles.

“The latest high-speed monorails run at speeds of 180-200 km/hour. And they could complete the expressway’s 110 km distance in 45 minutes,” says the NICE official.

Implementing the NICE monorail project is also expected to be significantly simpler and more cost effective than what is being proposed for monorail systems within Bangalore city. That’s because NICE’s monorail would run at the road level, not on stilts. The expressway median is 15 metre wide and the Peripheral Road median is 11.5 metre wide. That is seen to be sufficient to run a two-way monorail system.

Stations and multi-storeyed car parks are proposed to be set up at each interchange on the expressway and the Peripheral Road. On the Peripheral Road, the interchanges are present wherever the road intersects major existing roads like Hosur Road, Bannerghatta Road, Kanakapura Road, Mysore Road, Magadi Road and Tumkur Road. On the expressway, the interchanges are present at towns along the way.